SEIU Healthcare PA
Media Advisory For: Monday, Feb. 17, 2025
Contact: Chris Coil, 435-301-6013, chris.coil@hailstonecommunications.com or Tano Toussaint, 215-284-8809, tano.toussaint@seiuhcpa.org
Nurses will hold spirited all-day picket lines and series of actions to highlight the crisis of over 300 unfilled nursing positions and severe understaffing, turnover and burnout
Wilkes-Barre, PA – On Monday, Feb. 17 at 7 am, 800 nurses at Geisinger Wyoming Valley will begin their 5-day strike to protest unfair labor practices and advocate for quality patient care for their community. In addition to daily picket lines, they will be holding a series of exciting actions to highlight the crisis of over 300 unfilled nursing positions and severe understaffing, turnover and burnout that has been caused by a lack of competitive wages, exorbitant healthcare costs and rising workplace violence.
Nurses negotiated for long hours on February 6 and 11, doing everything they could to avoid a strike. But rather than investing in recruiting and retaining nurses, executives in the final hour chose to stop negotiations and invest $5 million dollars for out-of-state replacement nurses, who they will be paying $100 an hour during the strike. Nurses say that is an irresponsible waste of precious resources which could have been used to invest in permanent staff and settle a fair contract. Geisinger is largely funded through taxpayers and the local communities that are on Geisinger Health insurance, so executives have a moral obligation to use resources ethically and for the common good.
Nurses’ top priorities are compensation that leads hospitals in the region to improve recruitment and retention; affordable healthcare benefits for themselves and their families; safety initiatives that protect staff and patients; and other provisions that help solve understaffing. The strike involves nurses at three GWV locations – the main medical center and Geisinger South in Wilkes-Barre and Geisinger Healthplex CenterPoint in Pittston. This would be the first nurses strike in the history of Geisinger.
“When I was 12 years old, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and we were told he only had nine months to live, but in large part because of the care he received from his nurses, he’s alive today,” said Jimmy Romanelli, a registered nurse who has a decade of service to GWV and works in the Cancer Center. “My dad’s a walking miracle and a testament to the power of nursing care. Witnessing how nurses helped save my dad’s life made me want to become a nurse in the Cancer Center, so I could make a real difference in my community. It’s very upsetting when we are short staffed in my department, because our vulnerable patients have to wait longer to receive their treatments. In other areas throughout GWV, understaffing and turnover make it extremely difficult for nurses to provide the one-on-one, personalized care that our patients desperately need. We’re understaffed because our healthcare costs are through the roof and our pay is not competitive. Back during the pandemic, Geisinger executives put up signs and loudly proclaimed us heroes. Now they’re treating us like zeroes. We’re taking a stand against corporate healthcare and putting highly-paid executives on notice that they need to value nurses so we can be there for our patients.”
Nurses’ major concerns include that they are paid less than other area hospitals, even though Geisinger is the region’s Level 1 Trauma Center; many nurses have to pay over $700 a month for family health insurance to Geisinger; travel nurses are paid around twice as much as permanent staff nurses and pay less for their healthcare, undercutting good local jobs; Geisinger executives want to cut back nurses’ sick days; nurses have an overwhelming amount of on-call hours, forcing some to sleep in their cars in the parking lot; and management has not taken sufficient concrete action to address workplace violence.
The population of Pennsylvania is older, sicker and requires more complex care than ever before and Geisinger should be a leader in addressing these needs. But according to data provided by Geisinger, over 380 nurses left GWV between 2022 and June of 2024. From January to June of last year alone, there was a 22% turnover rate. 48% of all GWV nurses have five years or less of experience. There are over 300 unfilled nursing positions at GWV, a 31% vacancy rate, three times higher than the national vacancy rate of 9.9%. In a survey, 56% of GWV nurses said they plan to leave in the next two years.
Kaiser Permanente – one of the largest healthcare corporations in the U.S. – acquired Geisinger last year through Risant, and promised a $5 billion investment. They have more than enough resources to solve the issues facing nurses. In 2024, GWV recorded net income of more than $123 million, according to its tax filings. Kaiser’s net operating income last year was $569 million on more than $115 billion in operating revenue. Jaewon Ryu transitioned from President and CEO of Geisinger to President and CEO of Risant. In 2023, Geisinger paid him over $7 million in total compensation.
GWV nurses have been trying to reach a new contract with executives since November and voted by 99% in January to authorize a strike if necessary. When their contract expired on January 31, nurses voted overwhelmingly to reject Geisinger’s proposals. Nurses say they do not want to strike, but that corporate executives have left them little choice and they are determined to do whatever it takes to advocate for their patients and community. They previously provided the hospital with the 10-day unfair labor practice strike notice to ensure patient safety and continuity of care.
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SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania is the state’s largest and fastest-growing union of nurses and healthcare workers, uniting tens of thousands of professional and technical employees, direct care workers, and service employees in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home- and community-based services, and state facilities across the Commonwealth. SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members are committed to improving the lives of healthcare workers and ensuring quality care and healthy communities for all Pennsylvanians.